How to google like a Pro?
Google is unarguably the King of search engines. Its market dominance is not only impressive but also massive with roughly 3.5 billion searches per day. Almost all of us use Google search several times a day. Our typical Google search involves typing a few words related to our search and keep modifying them until we reach our desired search result. Many of us still unaware of the techniques to use Google to its ultimate potential. Knowing a few Google search tips and tricks can help in finding information faster and easier.
How to Search on Google Effectively?
Here is an overview of some of the techniques and tricks to search like a Pro on Google. It will help you to find exactly what you are looking for in the lesser amount of time.
- Exact Phrase: This is probably something you are already aware of. In this, you need to type the phrase in the order that you want them to appear and put them in double quotes.
For example, if you want to search the phrase How to search on Google, then you need to type “how to search on Google“. It will show results only for this phrase and remove the results of the related phrases.
- Exclude a word: You can also prevent or eliminate certain words from appearing in your search result. The words which may generate a lot of search results which may be irrelevant to you. The trick is simple, first, find the word or words that you are not interested in and simply put (-) sign in front of them.
For example, if you want to search for online shopping, and want to eliminate any particular website from the results. You need to type, “online shopping -amazon“
- Find unknown Word or variable: Simply use an asterisk sign (*) in place of the missing word. This tells Google that there should be a word here, but you don’t know what it is. This is amazing when it comes to searching for lyrics of songs or particular poem whose words you don’t recall entirely.
For example, you want to search the poem Solitary Reaper, but you don’t remember the lines. So you can type, “I have * to keep and Miles to go before I *“
- Search within a website: This is one of the most exciting features of Google, which enable to search for something specific on a particular website. To search you need to type the “search term site: URL of the website”
For example, you want to search for SEO Q&A forum in moz.com then you will type, “SEO Q&A site:https://www.moz.com/“
- Search News Archives: With Google, you can search news archives going back to the mid of the 1880s. It gives you the access to 100s of newspapers around the world and searches for archived news. You can follow the link and see for yourself, https://news.google.com/newspapers?hl=en
- Using the “OR”: It is Google’s nature to include all the terms specified in the search. If you are looking for two terms to give you separate results, then you can use “OR” in between them.
For Example, you want to search for articles related to marketing and advertising but explaining them distinctly then you will type, “Marketing OR Advertising“. Here OR must be written in caps.
- Learn Meaning: You can use the command DEFINE here to get the meaning of the words. It helps you learn everything about the term like translations, word origin, and more definitions.
For Example, Just type “define Marketing” and you will get the desired results.
- Particular Words in Text: When you want to restrict your search to only the body text on the website and exclude all titles, links, and URLs which might distract your search, then you can use intext or allintext commands.
For example, if you want to search for Marketing, then you will type either, “intext:Marketing” or “allintext:Marketing“. There should be no space between the colons and the search term.
- Words in Title: If you want to search terms which are only the part of the websites’ Title then you will go with the command “intitle:”
For example, you want marketing to be the keyword in the website title then, you type, “intitle:Marketing“
- Related Search: If you want to find a website similar or related to the site you know, then you can use related: command.
For example, you want to search for websites related or which has information about yogesha10.sg-host.com then you can type, “related: yogesha10.sg-host.com”
- Reverse Image search: Go to https://images.google.com/, then click on the camera icon. You can upload an image from your device, or you can search with the URL. To search with an online image, right click on it and click on copy image location, then paste that link into the search bar and hit search.
The result will be similar or related images. If you want exactly the same image, then you need to click on the search by image link which is under the search bar. This will tell you where all the exact image has been posted and may even lead you to the origin of that particular image.
- Find a cached Website: You love a website and want to search it after a long time only to find whether it’s still there. You can use cache command to read its content again. It may contain the deleted or last updated material which was cached.
For example, you can type “cache:URL“
- Particular file type: Google allows you to search for a specific file type by using filetype command.
For example, if you want only the PPT of the search term, then you type, “Marketing filetype:ppt“. The extension can be changed as per the requirement for example pdf, doc or xls.
- Verbatim Searching: This is a very special command as verbatim search removes personalized, corrected, suggested, related, and non-inclusive results. When you click on tools icon under the search bar, you can see further two drop-down menus “Any Time” and “All Results”. Go to ‘All Results’ and choose ‘Verbatim’.
On the verbatim page, users will see only results that:
- Include all their search terms
- Match their exact spelling
- Use the same tense
- Use the same verb form
- Use the identical plural vs singular form
There are still too many search commands that you may use for your search on Google but we have listed some of the not so popular but highly recommended commands in this list. So, now you can explore yourself by trying these tips and start using Google like a Pro.
